FMX 2018

Oliver Schulz is a designer and artist through and through. For him it doesn't matter if he's painting, sketching or rendering CG - he sees technology as a tool to express himself. Having joined RISE in 2011 he has already contributed to a large number of films and TV programs, leaving his mark in every detail. His CG supervisor credits include Guy Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther (obviously). Currently he acts as VFX supervisor on Avengers: Infinity War.

>> Black Panther - The Tech Behind Jabari Land
The presentation will show the tech behind RISE’s work for Marvel Studios' Black Panther. Since RISE is relying heavily on SideFX Houdini and Mantra for the majority of the CG work including environments, FX, lighting and rendering - here is the full overview of how Jabari Land and the mountain environment, the rock formations and the snow covered peaks came to be.

Oliver Markowski is the CG Supervisor at the RISE | Visual Effects Studios’ Munich facility. Before joining full-time the RISE team, Oliver had previously worked as a Freelancer for notable companies including Scanline, Trixter, Mackevision and Framestore. Projects also include commercial and automotive visualization in addition to his feature and television series. Oliver is an active board member of the ‘VES Germany’ branch and a proud self-dubbed geek who at one time built his own low-budget mini light-stage for face scanning.

>> Black Panther - The Tech Behind Jabari Land
The presentation will show the tech behind RISE’s work for Marvel Studios' Black Panther. Since RISE is relying heavily on SideFX Houdini and Mantra for the majority of the CG work including environments, FX, lighting and rendering - here is the full overview of how Jabari Land and the mountain environment, the rock formations and the snow covered peaks came to be.

>> Babylon Berlin: Complex Crowd SIMs And Environments With A Rapid Turnaround 
RISE will present the tech behind over 800 shots for the most expensive non-English series to date: Babylon Berlin. Focusing on the Houdini work we will take an in depth look at the crowd system created for this show, including cloth simulations and approaches to streamline retargeting and animation workflows. The second focus will be on the extensive environment pipeline at RISE and how Houdini's procedural workflows were used to bring Berlin in the 20s to life.

Moritz Schwind still thinks “Space: 1999” is the coolest thing that ever happened on German TV. Be it pixels, hardware, code or cameras – if it’s interesting, Moritz is gonna take it apart. And sometimes even reassemble it. In his spare time he likes to dabble with code and create generative artwork. He claims his early exposure to QBasic is no help at all when working in Houdini, Cinema 4D, Processing or Arduino. But it might have been what started his fascination for the boundaries of code and art. When not wreaking havoc to any intriguing devices around him, he works as a Technical Director.

>> All Your Clones Are Belong To Us! Surviving The Switch To Houdini In The Realm Of Motion Graphics
Motion Design and Advertising are strange places. In between clients claiming they "don't like the reflections, but the reflex is nice!" and directors wanting to discuss the best techniques to mold a cheetah's head, you have to figure out technically sound solutions to artists' problems while keeping them usable and accessible. In this talk Entagma's Manuel And Moritz present the techniques they've been implementing since deciding to use Houdini as their go to tool for advanced motion graphics projects. They brought anecdotes, behind the scenes info, infamous hacks and other surprises.

Manuel Casasola Merkle changes his software packages more often than his shirts. Manuel Casasola Merkle likes to dive deep into the ins & outs of contemporary CG research, burrying his desk under piles of Siggraph papers. An avid Cinema 4D user, Manuel keeps an open mind about tools and uses whatever it takes to get a job done, thus racking up quite diverse software skills such as VEX, Pyhton, Houdini, World Machine, Photo Scan, 3D Coat, Krita, Fusion or ZBrush. When he’s not pondering over the state of 3D software in general, he is partner and creative director of Munich based studio Aixsponza.

>> All Your Clones Are Belong To Us! Surviving The Switch To Houdini In The Realm Of Motion Graphics
Motion Design and Advertising are strange places. In between clients claiming they "don't like the reflections, but the reflex is nice!" and directors wanting to discuss the best techniques to mold a cheetah's head, you have to figure out technically sound solutions to artists' problems while keeping them usable and accessible. In this talk Entagma's Manuel And Moritz present the techniques they've been implementing since deciding to use Houdini as their go to tool for advanced motion graphics projects. They brought anecdotes, behind the scenes info, infamous hacks and other surprises.

Dan Yargici is a highly experienced 3D Artist working out of The Mill’s London studio. Dan has an impressive portfolio spanning over 20 years in the industry. He has been involved in many of The Mill's most high profile and technically challenging projects including Virgin Media 'Delivering Awesome', Lexus 'Shift', and Three 'Go Binge'. 

Having worked primarily as a generalist throughout the beginning of his career, Dan's inquisitiveness eventually set him on a path towards increasingly technically focused projects which have enabled him to bridge his creative instinct with the tools and workflows needed to bring his ideas to life on the screen.

>> Audi Pure Imagination
Over the course of six months a team of Mill artists worked to realise the vision of cult director GMUNK and his brief. The task was to visualise the way an artificial intelligence might perceive, conceive and create a car for Audi. Mill Deputy Head of 3D, Alex Hammond and Mill 3D Artist, Dan Yargici, will take the audience on a journey through their process which leveraged the power of SideFX Software, Houdini. The process helped to create lucid images of a surreal dreamscape driven by an even more surreal brief.

Alex Hammond is Deputy Head of 3D at The Mill’s London studio. Having joined The Mill over 12 years ago, he has worked on many of The Mill’s highest profile, most cutting edge projects. His recent creative highlights include Audi ‘Pure Imagination’, Halifax ‘Thunderbirds’ and O2 ‘Follow The Rabbit’. Previous notable works include the multi-award winning SSE ‘Maya’, in which Alex led a team of artists in crafting a 100% photo-real CG orangutan. Some of his other extensive credits include, British Airways ‘To Fly To Serve’, SK2 ‘Hands’, Range Rover ‘Accelerator’ and Mars ‘Celebrations’. During his career Alex has forged key relationships with a number of the world’s best directors such as Tom Hooper, Johnny Green, Martin Krejci, dom&nic and Sam Brown. 

Alex plays an integral role in overseeing much of The Mill’s CG craft with a particular area of expertise in creating photoreal creature work. He has helped develop key fur systems which paved the way for the immensely successful PETA “98% Human’, which set the benchmark for photoreal creature work within the field of VFX.

>> Audi Pure Imagination
Over the course of six months a team of Mill artists worked to realise the vision of cult director GMUNK and his brief. The task was to visualise the way an artificial intelligence might perceive, conceive and create a car for Audi. Mill Deputy Head of 3D, Alex Hammond and Mill 3D Artist, Dan Yargici, will take the audience on a journey through their process which leveraged the power of SideFX Software, Houdini. The process helped to create lucid images of a surreal dreamscape driven by an even more surreal brief.

Jeff "Old School" Wagner has been a part of the SideFX Software support team from the early days of PRISMS leading up to today's Houdini. Over the years he has accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge and insight and is regarded by many as a true Houdini Guru. If you've encountered him online or watched one of the tutorials then now is the opportunity to meet him in person.

>> The Five Elements - Water
This presentation is all about working with water inside Houdini inspired by the five elements. Looking at all the different ways you can use to make, shape and bend water entirely in Houdini. Making water conform to deforming shapes, creating directed stormy oceans, calm water with ripples, dripping water, water with variable viscosity, bubbles inside water and more. Many of the setups begin with the shelf and then use latest methods for working with large and small flip simulations including surfacing techniques for the various cases. As with FLIP in Houdini16.5, the scale of the simulation needs to be carefully managed to ensure good results.

Esther Trilsch started her career as a character TD apprentice at the Disney Animation Studios in Burbank working on Zootopia. She joined the RISE in 2016 as a Rigging Supervisor and Pipeline TD. Her latest Projects include Jim Button, Black Panther and of course Babylon Berlin. Combining her love for both the creative side of anatomy and deformation and the technical side of coding, workflow structures and technical RnD she found her sweet spot in rigging and the general character pipeline development.

>> Babylon Berlin: Complex Crowd SIMs And Environments With A Rapid Turnaround
RISE will present the tech behind over 800 shots for the most expensive non-English series to date: Babylon Berlin. Focusing on the Houdini work we will take an in depth look at the crowd system created for this show, including cloth simulations and approaches to streamline retargeting and animation workflows. The second focus will be on the extensive environment pipeline at RISE and how Houdini's procedural workflows were used to bring Berlin in the 20s to life.

Andreas Giesen works as an FX Supervisor at RISE | Visual Effects Studios with his latest work being Babylon Berlin (obviously). He is considered one of RISE’s Swiss army knives who can take a shot, no matter how complex, from concept, through blocking, lighting, shading and rendering to final. However his primary focus is of course FX simulations - no matter if it’s fluids, crowds, rigid body sims or pipeline tools that help facilitate standard tasks for other artists. His previous work includes the complex crowd simulations for Babylon Berlin and FX Supervision for Captain America: Civil War.

>> Babylon Berlin: Complex Crowd SIMs And Environments With A Rapid Turnaround
RISE will present the tech behind over 800 shots for the most expensive non-English series to date: Babylon Berlin. Focusing on the Houdini work we will take an in depth look at the crowd system created for this show, including cloth simulations and approaches to streamline retargeting and animation workflows. The second focus will be on the extensive environment pipeline at RISE and how Houdini's procedural workflows were used to bring Berlin in the 20s to life.

Simon Holmedal has over 10 years of experience in the motion graphics industry and has been working for ManvsMachine as a technical director for the past 7 years. Now he is working under his own company as a digital film and design director with a focus on abstract effects.

>> Procedural Title Sequence
In this presentation Simon will breakdown his workflow when designing abstract effects for motion graphics using Houdini as his primary weapon of choice from early development and rnd to final production. We will also go through the development of the title sequence Simon did for “Us by night” and potentially a few other projects that he worked on during hes 8 years at ManvsMachine.

Dean Robinson is currently joint Head of CG with Simon at Electric Theatre. He had started his career at Framestore Commercials,  where he worked on some of their biggest commercials at the time including Renault 'Hectors Life', Johnny Walker ‘Tree’, Rexona ‘Fanimals’. 

He moved to MPC London in 2007 and lead big jobs such as Evian ‘Babies’ before leaving for MPC New York to help set up their commercials department. Whilst in New York he became Head of CG at MassMarket before returning to London and joining Electric Theatre as VFX supervisor where he leads character driven jobs. 

Since joining, he has helped lead Electric Theatre's biggest project to date Freeview 'Set Yourself Free', a fully CG spot directed in house, as well as leading the previous Christmas Centre Parcs spots, Three Rugby ‘ and helping lead on GWR “Five go on a Great Western Adventure”

>> Five Go Riot
Electric Theatre Collective will present work from two of 2017’s most creative and challenging fully CG projects - Pentakill “Mortal Reminder” and GWR “Five go on a Great Western Adventure”

Simon French joined Electric Theatre in September 2017 as the joint Head of CG. Previously Head of CG / Creative Director at Framestore Advertising, Simon established his career in VFX working closely with highly regarded directing duo Dom and Nic on projects such as Chemical Brother’s “The Salmon Dance” and the multi award winning Shelter “‘House of Cards” campaign. 

Simon has also worked closely with renowned director Danny Kleinman on many projects including: Creating a CG Audrey Hepburn for “Galaxy Chauffeur”, James Bond “Spectre” title sequence and Mercedes “King of The Jungle”.

>> Five Go Riot
Electric Theatre Collective will present work from two of 2017’s most creative and challenging fully CG projects - Pentakill “Mortal Reminder” and GWR “Five go on a Great Western Adventure”

Sonya "Sunny" Teich is a Lead Effects Technical Director at Framestore. With dual degree in Engineering and Fine Art from the University of Pennsylvania, she has spent her career working at major studios including Disney Animation and Weta Digital.

In addition to her work in the industry, she is interested in examining the societal impact of the blockbuster films she helps to create. Her writing on the subject has been published by media outlets such as Salon, Techcrunch, and Vice.

>> "You Cannot Stop Ragnarok. Why Fight It?”: Destroying Asgard in Thor Ragnarok
Framestore took on the massive third act of Thor - from the initial battle with Hela on the Rainbow Bridge, to Asgard’s epic explosion at the hands of a planet-sized demon. We’ll talk about the some of the challenges we faced in Effects and how Houdini helped us to overcome them.

Kalin Stoyanov is founder and partner in Red Ring Entertainment, a boutique creative studio, located in Bulgaria. With more than 15 years experience in the CG industry Kalin has deserved him a reputation of a great artist. 

His passion and expertise can drive a project from the concept art to the final editing. His artistic skills allow him to get deep into details no matter of the project stage. Most recent projects of the studio include “Death Race”, Rob Cohen’s “The Hurricane Heist”.

>> Amarok - Creature Creation
The presentation will cover the creation of Amarok – the mythical creature we were asked to develop for the new Houdini 16. We will show the power of Houdini for creating characters – from rigging to animation. Advantages of the new hair system also will be covered.

Sergio Caires is a self-taught artist who started working in the CG industry in 1998. He has worked at Axis Studios for 12 years as a Generalist and CG Supervisor). He worked for five years at the DA Group prior to that, as Character Supervisor and then Art Director). Sergio has worked on 90% of the projects Axis has produced over the years, including Code Hunters, Halo Guardians, Dead Island, Dead Island 2, League of Legends: Mind of the Virtuoso, and The Incredible Hulk.

Sergio has a true passion for CG and is constantly learning new tools, methods and techniques. His broader interests include science and natural history.

>> Custom Shading in Game Trailers
The evolution of the subsurface scatter shader over the years at Axis Animation.